Society shapes science (Philosophy HL)

The big idea: It's tempting to picture science following its own curiosity wherever it leads. But science costs money — often a LOT of money — and someone has to pay.

So the real question is quieter and sharper: who decides which questions get the funding, and which get ignored?

This micro looks at the many ways society steers science from the outside — long before any result comes back.

Some of the most important research is so vast that only whole societies can afford it — which hands them real power over it.

'Big science': the Genome Project and the LHC: The idea of big science shows how deep society's grip runs. The Human Genome Project — mapping all human DNA — cost billions and needed governments across several countries to agree it was worth it. The Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle machine near Geneva, took thousands of scientists from dozens of nations and years of public spending. No single curious researcher could ever build these. So the public — through their governments — effectively chooses whether such knowledge gets pursued at all.

Checkpoint — big science: In one line: the biggest, most important research is too costly for any individual, so whole societies decide whether it happens at all. Hold that — the next section shows how the SOURCE of the money bends the science.

It isn't only how MUCH funding there is — it's WHERE it comes from, and that quietly decides which problems even count as worth solving.

Military research and the questions left unasked: A huge share of science has been funded to build weapons and defence — from radar and rockets to the early internet and nuclear physics. That money pulls whole fields toward the questions armies care about, and away from others. Meanwhile, illnesses that mostly affect poorer countries attract far less funding than those affecting rich ones — not because they matter less, but because fewer powerful backers pay for the answers. So society doesn't just fund science; it decides whose problems science treats as urgent.

Go further — higher-level insight: This connects straight back to 6.3.1. If society chooses which questions science even asks, then the 'contextual values' Longino described aren't just inside one scientist's head — they're built into the whole funding system. So a science that looks perfectly neutral in each experiment can still be deeply value-laden in what it chose to study. Naming that gap is a top-band move.

Checkpoint — whose questions: In one line: where the money comes from decides whose problems science treats as urgent — so the gaps in our knowledge are choices, not accidents.